Yes, same here. No harm in asking questions.

Ken,

I still don't really see the problem with that progression though, which is quite standard I should say. If you want to show me the notes, I can take a look and see if I'd do things differently.

Try 2+2 then 1+3 on every ballad in the Real Book

Hey Knots
Do you recommend I buy the Levine book or Randy's Metaphors book to learn and apply these buckets of 2+2, 2+3, drop 2, drop 3 ?

I love both these books. They are great.
For learning 2+2 and 2+3, you really don't need either. Those are quite simple concepts. Drop2 is covered quite a bit in the Jazz piano book.

Both books are not the same, they don't have the same goal. Metaphors is more like talking to a teacher, he gives a lot of great tips. Many are in line with JOI.
Levines' is more of an encyclopedia of voicings and scales. More of a theory book. Both are well written, but the jazz Piano book is really superior in terms of writing.

You know when I learnt the 2+3 voicing, it was within the context of the A/B rootless voicing and drop 2.

My teacher basically got me to play the rootless voicing in the right hand, drop the 2nd note to the left hand thumb alla drop 2, and play the bass note with the pinky in the left hand. Its essentially the same 2+3 voicing but allows you to think about it in terms of the basic rootless voicing. Curious if other people do it the same way

Fair enough. I guess I was just looking for a different option that would be more like voice leading rather than jumping up a 5th. I came up with a few options.
- Play 2+2 instead of 2+3
- Drop the top note an octave
- Drop 2

I learnt about 2+2 and 2+3 from Jazz Keyboard for Pianists and Non-Pianists by Jerry Coker many years ago when I first started using piano so that is the two handed voicing I use.

s_winitsky, I never thought of it like that.

I graviate towards the 6+6

I've been using the 2+2 (aka shell voicings) as the base (not bass) for my solo playing. What I've been working on lately is playing this way without look down. The goal is to be able to play any tune from a fakebook solo.



If you play the root and seventh in the left hand, you can play the B and A in the right. Or you can use a rootless or other voicing whenever you come to a problem like this.



I rarely use this approach when playing with a bass player.
That was an epiphany I had: You don't need to use the 2+2 for every chord. Check out this video:





As long as you only play a few chords up high, I think it sounds great. That is, it provides some variety from having the chords in the same area of the keyboard.

Thanks for sharing -- most helpful!